The local guys stayed in the car, and Harper and Readier got out and stood stretching on the shoulder. Then the engine shut down behind them and the stunning silence of the empty country fell on them like a weight. It hummed and hissed and echoed in their ears.
“I’d feel better if she lived in a city apartment,” Reacher said.
Harper nodded. “With a doorman.”
There was no gate. The ranch fencing just stopped either side of the mouth of the driveway. They walked together toward the house. The driveway was shale. Reassuringly noisy, at least. There was a slight breeze. Reacher could hear
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it in the power lines. Harper stopped at the front door. There was no bell push. Just a big iron knocker in the shape of a lion’s head with a heavy ring held in its teeth. There was a fisheye spyhole above it. The spyhole was new. There were burrs of clean wood where the drill had chipped the paint. Harper grasped the iron ring and knocked twice. The ring thumped on the wood. The sound was loud and dull, and it rolled out over the grassland. Came back seconds later from the hills.
There was no response. Harper knocked again. The sound boomed out. They waited. There was a creak of floorboards inside the house. Footsteps. The sound approached unseen and stopped behind the door.
“Who is it?” a voice called. A woman’s voice, apprehensive.
Harper went into her pocket and came out with her badge. It was backed with a slip of leather, the same type of gold-on-gold shield Lamarr had clicked against Reacher’s car window. The eagle at the top, head cocked to the left. She held it up, six inches in front of the spyhole.
“FBI, ma’am,” she announced. “We called you yesterday, made an appointment.”
The door opened with the creak of old hinges and revealed an entrance hall with a woman in it. She was holding the doorknob, smiling with relief.
“Julia’s got me so damn nervous,” she said.
Harper smiled back in a sympathetic way and introduced herself and Reacher. The woman shook hands with both of them.
“Alison Lamarr,” she said. “Really pleased to meet you.”
She led the way inside. The hall was square and as large as a room, walled and floored in old pine which had been stripped and waxed to a fresh color a shade darker than the gold on Harper’s badge. There were curtains in yellow checked gingham. Sofas with feather-filled pillows. Old oil lamps converted to take electric bulbs.
“Can I get you guys coffee?” Alison Lamarr asked.
“I’m all set right now,” Harper said.
“Yes, please,” Reacher said.
She led them through to the kitchen, which was the whole rear quarter of the first floor. It was an attractive space, waxed floor polished to a shine, new cabinets in unostentatious timber, a big country range, a line of gleaming machines for washing clothes and dishes, electric gadgets on the countertops, more yellow gingham at the windows. An expensive renovation, he guessed, but designed to impress only herself.
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“Cream and sugar?” she asked.
“Just black,” he said.
She was medium height, dark, and she moved with the bounce of a fit, muscular woman. Her face was open and friendly, tanned like she lived outdoors, and her hands were worn, like she maybe installed her own ranch fencing for herself. She smelled of lemon scent and was dressed in clean denim which had been carefully pressed. She wore tooled cowboy boots with clean soles. It looked like she’d made an effort for her visitors.
She poured coffee from a machine into a mug. Handed it to Reacher and smiled. The smile was a mixture of things. Maybe she was lonely. But it proved there was no blood relationship with her stepsister. It was a pleasant smile, interested, friendly, smiled in a way Julia Lamarr had no idea existed. It reached her eyes, which were dark and liquid. Reacher was a connoisseur of eyes, and he rated these two as more than acceptable.
“Can I look around?” he asked.
“Security check?” she said.
He nodded. “I guess.”
“Be my guest.”